Snake Patrol

I have a snake in my abdomen. 

It started out as a gnarly tar monster coiling around in my stomach, holding onto pain.

Yes, finding a multidimensional black tapeworm in your innards is just as much fun as it sounds.

I met my sticky tar snake in a therapy appointment when we were investigating some suppressed feelings, which is a thing you do in therapy and is also just as much fun as it sounds.

As we sat there on zoom, because pandemic appointments, I opened a door over my belly button for the snake to slither out, taking all the heavy blackness with it. I started feeling lighter and lighter and as the black smoke turned to gray fog and eventually dissipated, all that was left was a small silver snake.

My heavy black horror snake was actually this cute little silver snake bloated with suppressed emotion.

Now my little silver snake friend helps me monitor my energy - specifically, how much I’m absorbing from other people. Then he helps me boot it out of my system. I just have to check into my stomach and see what’s there. If it’s a little silver snake curled up in the corner, I’m good. If the silver snake is clouded by fog or storm clouds, I have some stuff to let go of. If the snake is looking black or bloated, it’s time to do some clearing.

Often what feels heavy and overwhelming, like it would be a bad idea to poke with a stick, is simply something that was trying to help us out and got a little lost along the way. Maybe it took on more than it could handle. Maybe it needed some help and got ignored. Maybe it just needed a rest.

Sometimes monsters turn cute when you give them some love and attention.

Recoding Codependence

In six months, I went from not being sure what the word “codependent” even meant to realizing that unbridled codependence riddled every aspect of my existence.

Here’s what codependence boils down to in my experience: Needing someone else to be okay so that you can be okay.

My codependent tendencies exploded in my face when I moved in with my boyfriend. Sharing a home with a partner will shine a massive search light on any hidden proclivities for Needing Everyone Else To Be In a Great Mood and Also Not Mad At Me Before I Can Feel Safe. Yikes.

Here’s the problem with that: When we put all our power and happiness and wellbeing in the hands of someone else, even someone who loves us, we are as doomed as the Stark family in Game of Thrones.

Because even when that person has our best interests at heart, they have their own life and issues and happiness to attend to - they can’t be on the hook for ours too.

I've spent the last six months wresting all of my relationships from the grip of my codependent patterns and yes, it’s just as much fun as it sounds. Nothing escaped this pattern, not my relationship with my boyfriend, my family, my friends, my business, my clients. I was even being codependent with the universe.

If you’re wondering how codependence with the universe sounds, picture this being shrieked into the infinite starry void:

WHY AREN’T YOU GIVING ME WHAT I NEED? I’M DOING EVERYTHING I CAN, SO MAKE THINGS BETTER ALREADY! COME ON, UNIVERSE!

I’ll say it again: Yikes.

My codependence was flavored with a savior complex, resentment, and more than a few pity parties. Honestly, this has kind of torched my life. Because no one wants to be around that, let me tell you. I didn’t even want to be around it.

Here’s Codependence Zinger #1: It all comes from a good place. (Except maybe all those pity parties. Calm down, Amber.)

We want others to be happy. We want to help and will often do so at the expense of our own wellbeing.

I wanted my boyfriend to be happy, so I bent over backward to tend to his mood, which mostly just pissed both of us off. Our relationship didn’t improve until my mantra became AMBER’S NUMBER ONE! AMBER’S NUMBER ONE! (He gets to be number one too, so it works out.)

Here’s Codependence Zinger #2: Our culture rewards codependence.

We’re praised for putting other people’s happiness above our own. We’re lauded for being responsible and productive human beings, something that's often at the expense of our own health and happiness. This is what Good People do.

My wild ride through the thickets of codependence makes sense: I needed to come into a fuller experience of my own power and my own ability to self-source, without relying on my boyfriend or my friends or my clients or the universe to make me feel better or confident or loved or safe. This is a big part of my work and what I teach, and so I need to be a goddamn master at it. Sometimes when you’re blazing a trail, you get slapped in the face with branches.

Because everything we want and need - safety, confidence, power, abundance, love - comes from within us. Which is both a relief and an annoyance because “you already have everything you need!” (whew, okay) but also “hey! then why doesn’t it feel like it?”

Catching codependent patterns is like unraveling a rainbow sweater by only pulling out the red yarn and leaving the rest of the sweater intact. It’s not easy. I had to get help from someone who knows her way around addiction and codependence. I spent months relentlessly catching my patterns and recoding my brain to recognize myself as worthy of all the attention I was sending outside of myself, learning to fill my own cup so I could give from the overflow rather than being a parched husk of a vessel that’s no good to anyone.

Yes, it’s a lot of work. And I get to keep working on it, so wily codependence doesn’t sneak back in on a technicality.

But the reward is being happy, no matter what’s going on around me. Or at least at peace, if happiness is a bit of a stretch that day. Just because my boyfriend has a bad day doesn’t mean I need to have a bad day or fret for hours about what I’ve done wrong. Just because my business is going through transition doesn’t mean I need to suffer. Just because the world is going through seismic shifts doesn’t mean I need to destroy my mental health.

Who knew that making "ME FIRST" the mantra would fix everything in my life? No, this particular mantra probably isn't the answer for everyone, but if you’re reading this, it may be the answer for you.

ME FIRST GODDAMNIT has upgraded every aspect of my life. It’s healed my relationships, including my relationship with myself and the divine, it’s healing my business, my body, and my relationship with money. It's amplifying my self-esteem and my work in the world, and it just feels better.

Ideally, I’d wrangle up some snappy ending to reward you for making it through this epic number of paragraphs, but I’d rather go make some tea and watch the sunrise, so ME FIRST!

Seven lessons from five years of running an intuitive business

(Said lessons are wildly applicable to all life paths, in case you're wondering why you clicked on this post.)

Eyes on your own paper. 

When I first started, I didn't do it the way anyone else did it. I did things the way I wanted to do them - channel everything on the spot instead of planning? Perfect. Announce multiple things at a time because that's the way they're flowing through my brain? Done. 

I wasn't looking at anyone else, I wasn't doing it the way anyone else was doing it, and it felt so good. Until I started looking at other people's instagram accounts. Until I got onto a few email lists. I stopped focusing on the process that felt best to me and started to feel like I needed to Learn Things From People Who Knew Better Than I. This would have been fine, except that instead of cherry-picking the lessons I needed, I began to doubt the way I was doing things.

We do things differently because we're meant to do things differently. There are people who need things done the way I do them, who need to hear things the way I say them, who need the energy I blaze out. So I get to do it however the hell I want. So do you. 

Charge whatever you need to show up from a place of excitement and nourishment. 

Don't charge the industry standard (whatever that is), don't charge what you think people will pay, charge what you need to do the work you do. Historically, I have been terrible at this. Or, more accurately, I've been great at the excitement but not so hot at the nourishment. Because I want everyone who wants to work with me to be able to. Because I want to help people even if, especially if, money is a challenge. Because money has so often been a challenge for me. 

Then I burned out so hard I could barely work for a year. Since then, I've had multiple come-to-Jesus moments with myself. Am I serious about doing this work? Am I serious about taking good care of myself? Am I serious about seeing the possibilities and transformation and magic that can happen when huge investments of energy, money, and time are made? Yes, yes, and yes. Yes even when it feels scary.

I made the commitment to myself to raise my prices in October to what nourishes me. (After sitting with that promise for a week, I've decided why wait until October?) Because healers need healers. Coaches need coaches. Women who work a lot need support. If you are in the business of supporting humans (which is every job ever), you need, require, and deserve whatever you need to do that work.

Charge what you need to be paid in order to do the work and show up from a place of excitement and overflow. That number may be uncomfortable. Do it anyway.

Self-care times a million. 

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but as someone who teaches women how to take better care of themselves, to nurture themselves, to treat themselves as sacred, I was often kinda bad at that. Practice what you preach, Amber. 

We're living through a time that calls for maximum self-care. Whatever it takes to keep your own cup filled, do that. No excuses. 

Commitment to self over outcome. 

Focusing on anything external pulls focus from where your true power lives. (Pro tip: Your power lives within you. Here's a little rant on that.) Here are some external things that actually deserve none of your attention: numbers of followers, numbers of likes, numbers in your bank account, things happening the way you wanted. Because they're actually none of your business. External response to your work is not your concern.

Controlling the way things happen in the work as a result of your work is not your job. Continuing to go within, feel the feelings of what you'd like to create, and then taking the next soul-led action - THAT is your job. Focus on shifting your internal experience in the direction that feels good and you can't fail. 

Don't do anything from a place of "I have to do this", do it from a place of "I can't wait to do this, I must do this, I must do this now, sorry dinner dishes you just lost your place in line." 

Why do I work for myself if I post something just because I think I have to? Doing things because you have to do them is terrible and soul-shrinking and we all wanted to leave that behind in elementary school. 

Honestly, everything is optional. Even the things that don't feel optional. You don't HAVE to pay your taxes, you just have to accept the consequences of not paying them. You don't HAVE to stop at that stop sign, you just have to accept the consequences of blowing through it. You don't HAVE to do those dishes, you just have to accept dirty dishes. 

When I do things in my business because I think I have to, they straight up do not work. When I do things from a place of OH MY GOD THIS! THIS IS THE THING RIGHT NOW! it doesn't matter whether it works or not, because I am in my creative genius flow. (Being in that place usually means it does work, but also means I don't feel too bothered either way.) 

Hint: If nothing feels good, nothing feels exciting, it's time to go back and fill your cup. Don't write the thing because you feel like you have to write the thing, go on a walk or watch Harry Potter or do whatever feels like a soul-sigh of relief and keep doing the soul relief things until you feel that inspiration and excitement fire back up. 

Go all in. 

For a long time, I was in the space of "Don't give up." Which is a very different flavor than "Go all in, energy blasters blazing."

Going all in is the energetic transformation that shifts the whole universe in your favor. 

Heal whatever you need to heal to get where you want to go. 

I had to heal an energy of scarcity going back many generations. I had to ground fully into my worth and the worth of this work. I had to heal societal constructs I had sucked up around what it means to be a healer (you have to heal everyone and you have to do it for free) and a woman. I had to heal my own rabid codependence. I had to heal my addiction to emotional drama and struggle and misery and lack. All this work is ongoing. I have to use all the tools I teach and channel more tools weekly to keep myself on track.

Heal your shit. Catch yourself when it bubbles back up and gently remind yourself that we don't do that anymore. 

Being a healer, an intuitive, a channel, a writer, a leader, a teacher, an entrepreneur, a lover of humans is not for the faint of heart. You already know this. But if you aren't quite sure - in this moment - if it's worth the effort, allow me to say: Yes. It's worth it. Keep going. Go all in, if you haven't already. Your soul is yearning for that commitment. 

Love, Amber 

Haunted by a Guinea Pig

I just took two weeks off. Two. Weeks. Off. And it was glorious.

I can’t remember the last time I took any significant time without opening up my laptop and stressing out, but I think it was in 2016. I didn’t touch social media or anything work related. I didn’t even open my email inboxes, except for that one time I did open them, before hightailing it right back out again when nobody had emailed me to say they were bleeding or on fire.

Instead, I turned off my brain, finished my Christmas shopping, and did all those holiday social things one does to be a part of the human race. I watched Netflix to recover from all those holiday social thing. I drank wine by the fire. I watched other people ski.

I did not teach myself how to play Vince Guaraldi’s Skating on the piano, which was probably a pipe dream anyway since I haven’t touched a keyboard in thirty years except to dust. Nor did I craft homemade thank you notes for Christmas gifts, nor have I sent thank you notes yet.

But I did go to Dodge Ridge to see pretty mountains and meet a bearded dragon named Jackie who likes to lounge on heater vents, and also poop on them. I went to Pelican Inn near Muir Beach and sat for hours with a book. I remembered that I liked books, something that I forgot, which just goes to show how much I needed a break. I made some decisions about my work - in that I’m going to show up for both myself and my work fully, no excuses, for three months (which includes built-in get-the-hell-off-social-media-and-the-laptop time) and see where I land. I even did a three-day cleanse to reset my all-bacon-all-sugar-all-the-time December diet, something else I haven’t done in years, but it felt really good.

For me, the challenge with cleanses isn’t the hunger - although I do find myself fantasizing quite a lot about roast beef sandwiches and waffles and also treating my loved ones to half-hour dissertations on macaroni and cheese - it’s the self-realizations.

Sometimes I use food to tamp down my feelings, I admit it. And it works a treat. But then when I remove food from the equation of a few days, a lot of things begin to rise to the surface. Like the fact that I’m pretty sure I’ve never let myself have a pet as an adult because when I was a kid I had a guinea pig, and then it died. I didn’t want a guinea pig, I wanted a dog, and I thought a guinea pig wasn’t a very good pet and it was kind of scared of me and then it died and I think I internalized the notion that it died because I didn’t love it enough. When actually, it was an old guinea pig, a second-hand guinea pig, and probably died at exactly the right time for a guinea pig. But still, I found my dead guinea pig in its cage one morning and drew some conclusions in my eight-year-old brain and boom, no pets for me.

(Yes, there are cats in this household, but they are my boyfriend’s cats and they will only crawl onto my lap in order to get to his lap. I am a cat bridge.)

I hadn’t thought about that guinea pig in decades but a few days without solid food and bam there it is. Honestly, I’m not 100% certain what to do with this information except maybe spend some time re-parenting that part of myself that thinks I killed a guinea pig with the force of my “that’s a lame pet” thoughts. Basically, I need to remind my inner child that we’re not god? EXCEPT THAT WE ARE. Because we are all our own unique expressions of god or spirit or the universe or whatever word floats your boat. But maybe we also aren’t responsible for the entire world or dead guinea pigs? I don’t know. Being human is super confusing.

Also, I eat meat so maybe the guinea pig isn’t what I feel guilty about? Oh my god, am I feeling guilty about the wrong things?

Guys, this is my vacation brain. Which may give you some insight into my everyday brain.

Anyway, it was a good and much needed rest and I’m actually excited to get back to it this week, which is more than I can say for most of last year. Thank you for reading about my vacation and my dead guinea pig.

Here we are at Dodge Ridge, before watching people ski as we eat nachos.

Here's the Path. Now Walk It.

Who else has one hell of a holy-whoa full moon hangover?

If you are raising your hand right now, hi. You are my tribe.

Shifts have been rolling in, fast and determined, which is what happens when you let the feisty phoenix give your life and soul a fiery blast.

I’ve been feeling the shift coming on for the past few weeks, which is why I stepped back from anything that drained me, started drinking ridiculous amounts of water, and focusing on healing myself over everything else.

As much as I want kids, I’m really glad I didn’t have them this month, because they probably would’ve demanded things. Like love. And food. And it was all I could do to get myself food, much less love.

Fully surrendering the illusion that I have any brand of control over my life did not come easy. Wading through the muck that was floating to the surface was a Shawshank Redemption-style army crawl through the sewer of my soul.

I want control. I tried to wrest control. I did everything in my rather stubborn power to make the universe bend to my will.

And, sure, the universe will bend to me.

But not by doing what I was doing.

What I was doing just made the universe laugh at me.

(Rude.)

Because, as ever, I need to focus on what’s happening internally.

I had to fill up my own damn cup - by crying, moving through old emotions and energy that got stuck in my spleen sometime in mid-2007, roaming the seashore, and drinking green juice and eating potato chips. By meditating and reading Harry Potter. By connecting with my heart and higher self and watching Netflix.

The human and the divine in one big messy orgy of It’s Goddamn Time and This Shift Is Coming Like It Or Not.

Halfway through, I hated it and was mad at it.

Now that I’m on the downhill slide, I like it.

It feels good to move through something big and dark-feeling and come out the other side with your light back on.

Here Are Some Things I Learned (Again) And Hope To Remember This Time

(Note to self: Remembering simply requires daily practice.)

Connect daily with my light and heart and higher self. It’s all in there, I just have to tap in.

Sweat and yoga it out, every day. Move out anything that wants to malinger.

Notice and be present with any shadows or dark spots. Love myself through it all.

Love myself through it all. Yup.

Have fun. Best way to shift into a higher state of being and vibration.

Fill my own cup daily. Just ask what feels like a soul and body sigh of relief and do the thing.

Blaze my own light and vibration. It works even better than shielding and clearing, though do that too.

Be fully and happily in a “whatever happens happens” frame of mind - with money, relationships, work, and life in general. It’s always “this or something better” and as I feel it all here now, life will organize it for me, all the faster if I keep my grubby mitts off.

Feel what I want to feel now - instead of waiting for the love or abundance to give it to me, because it won’t. The universe is mirroring my internal world back to me. So I can just go ahead and feel loved and secure and abundant right now, and the outer world can do whatever it damn well pleases.

Now is the only moment that exists. So I’m gonna be in it and enjoy it.

Taken in Mill Valley after staring at the ocean waves for awhile.

There’s the path. So we just gotta walk it and enjoy the motion.